


The Dark Lady's Champion [ON HIATUS]

by InFamousHero



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Loyalty, Monstrous Women Falling in Love, Nathanos? I don't know him, Origin Story, Past Mind Control, i will take a hammer and fix the canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-06-30 19:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15758061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFamousHero/pseuds/InFamousHero
Summary: Her real name was buried between the sinew woven across her body strand by strand, sealed away beneath the skin they wrapped her in and strangled by the title they gave her in its place: Marrow. An agent of the Lich King, a weapon of stalking, hungering terror to shadow the Banshee Queen and her wayward undead across Northrend, striking where it would hurt most. The San'layn were proud of their weapon, she was perfect. Almost perfect, if not for one simple, unseen flaw.The Banshee Queen knew her real name.





	1. The Hunter and The Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This covers my Forsaken Hunter's creation and how she ended up eventually joining Sylvanas to fight the Lich King, who created her as a weapon against the Forsaken.

**_Marrow_ **

His voice was the first thing she heard. The second was her own voice, screaming. She did that a lot at first, it was the only thing she knew how to do except flail and try to _get away_ , but that got her nowhere.  She was strapped down tighter, saronite biting into her flesh when she pulled and thrashed anyway. His minions worked on her nonetheless, common flesh shapers of the Cult, and elves, like her, and not like her—the San’layn. The San’layn were more calculated, making notes, sharing ideas each time they took her apart and wove each fibre of muscle back into just the right place.

The body was meat and bone, crude matter to be shaped and replaced. The first time they put her in the pit against a prisoner she was ungainly. A starving and battered orc nearly broke her in half.

She was dissected awake and put back together, again and again, the San’layn building upon each iteration, striving for perfection. The pit became the ‘blood bath’ to chortling guards, eager to see what would die next. There was always some new target, some new, soft _thing_ for her to tear apart the better they made her.

The talons made it easier. They cut through her cheeks and her bite became wider, easier to wrap around someone’s throat. They strengthened her body, printing glyphs under her skin to increase her durability in the face of dangerous foes. It made her deceptive, she was no tauren, no draenei, and the foolish would pay for thinking her no challenge.

Blood slickened the pit once more, arterial spray arching from the human’s neck. They grasped at it feebly, Alliance tags reddening, grime coated from his time in the cages. She prowled towards him, talons clicking together.

Salt and copper played on her senses, igniting something inside her at the sight of it. Blood was nothing new, but something was different, the San’layn had changed something about her again, and she licked her lips.

**_Mercy is for the weak_ **

Marrow descended on the human, tearing into the soft tissue of his throat. Crimson life flooded her mouth and he shuddered and flailed beneath her, adding to his scrapes and bruises in an effort to get away. But his limbs soon weakened and fell away, as did the frantic beating of his heart in her ears.

It was delicious.

 

* * *

 

**_You are an instrument of death and terror_ **

They carved glyphs into her skin, winding over her back, shoulders all the way down to the tips of her fingers. Another test, a challenge to flex her senses and prove she was worth something outside the confines of a pit fight.

The outside world made her excitable, so much sensory input, so much _life_ , but His voice drove her onwards, always, always onwards and _focused_ on the task at hand.

She hunted down the animals of the cold north, special, ancient animals of great power, and ripped free their beating hearts. Their souls fused with her, collecting within her glyphs to be called upon later. It was only one half of the test.

**_To Zul’drak, you will travel to a settlement called Zim’vora and you will kill everyone there_ **

And so she trekked through snow fields and across frozen lakes to this sheltered place, a den of frost trolls scraping out a life in the foothills between Zul’drak and the Storm Peaks.

A hunter saw her first. An arrow thudded into the snow as a warning. She stopped, watching them gather at the entrance, weapons at the ready, ushering the soft and weak to safety. It would be no use, her beasts already prowled from the sides.

Screams of pain and terror cut the air. The defenders turned in shock and she peppered their backs with poison tipped arrows. They tried to respond, pulled between immediate danger and the death wails of their friends and family. Marrow closed the distance in seconds, talons and blades flashing, slicing throats and bellies in a flurry of blood and scattered snow.

Their hearts would only add to her power.

**_The enemy has landed on our shores, building their fortifications, bringing the warmth of life to this realm. You will hunt my lost soldiers, you will hunt their Banshee Queen, and you will put the fear of death in their hearts once again…_ **

 

* * *

 

 

Marrow hunted the Forsaken like a panther toying with mice.

She hounded them in the Fjord, in the Hills, across the ragged canyons and planes of Dragonblight and beyond, all the way to Icecrown Glacier. They lost many to her, a shadow in the night, heralded by the cries to ghostly beasts whose eyes flashed in the darkness, a distraction to pull their attention away as she fired.

Their Queen was a formidable adversary, tenacious, cunning, and brilliantly ferocious.

Something about seeing her did something to Marrow’s psyche, pulled at shattered memories like wires in the muck, violent, deeply hidden—deeply forbidden _._ That something was to be repressed, reported on so it could be fixed, but it pushed her onwards instead. She had to know, _needed_ to know like she needed blood and flesh and the death of a beating heart in her gullet to keep her going.

The yearning took her further and further into danger, hunting that ghost of a feeling in the risks she took, overreaching, staying in the open too long just to see the if the Queen would show herself. More than once she directly engaged the Dark Lady when it wasn’t entirely advantageous to do so, isolating them with her pets to clash and struggle over this thing they called existence.

The Queen’s fury would not be overcome by such paltry means.

She slumped into the hollow of a long dead tree, a blizzard howling around her, and stared into nothing. The arrow in her chest dragged across her ribs and she blinked, looking down at it. Her mind click, click, clicked away with countless questions. She had precious few answers for her efforts.

Drawing a finger down the arrow shaft, she grasped it tight and ripped it out, tearing open muscle and skin. It would knit itself shut in time, sped along if she ate something, or someone. For now she simply stared as the liquid black glass of her blood oozed from the rupture, and her eyes flicked to the glistening tip of the arrow.

Like a flash of lightning, she remembered a pair of firm gloved hands hauling her up and the smell of summer flowers on the air. The sun was unbearable and blue eyes bored into her, commanding, disappointed—admonishment.

She brought the arrow to her lips and licked the blood from it.

“Cap…tain.”

 

* * *

 

 

Wind whipped across the ice field like a lash, tearing at anything soft or exposed, and Aeillure desperately wanted to be neither. Yet that was exactly what she felt the more they clashed. Judged, appraised on some unknowable measure, as if Sylvanas were digging her fingers into Marrow’s flesh and uprooting her bones.

The yearning made her reckless. She crashed into the ice on a missed swing and scrambled to get up.

“Aeillure Volisren, stand down!”

She flinched, she froze, she was blank—she was blank.

The name more than Sylvanas’s painfully familiar tone of voice was what made her freeze so. It jarred her entire sense of being and she felt something hard and otherwise immovable make a sudden, freeing shift, as if a weight lifted from her mind.

“Captain…?” She blinked slowly and lifted her gaze to Sylvanas, red against orange. For the briefest moment she didn’t see the Banshee Queen but her Farstrider Captain, the one who taught her in life, the one who went on to give her life for Quel’thalas. For what good it did either of them.

Sylvanas stepped around her, watching closely. “What do you remember?”

She blinked again, her mind stuck in the anchor of this moment. “I… don’t know. I—”

**_You. Are. MINE._ **

She flailed, grasping her head. The beasts within her roared all at once, bucking against the chains that threatened to tighten on them all over again—not now, not _again_ , not when there was a taste of freedom. She clung to her name, her _real_ name as an achor, and screamed for her captain to help her.

Hard, gloved hands pulled her tight against a cold body, restricting her thrashing. A palm pressed to her brow, claw tips prickling her scalp, she could feel him trying, he was worming back inside, under her skin, into her mind, her _mind—_ the shriek of something viscerally angry and deeply, gloriously hateful burned through her mind like a clarion call.

His presence recoiled, wrenched from her mind with all the tenderness of a frenzied worgen, and for once in her existence her mind fell quiet. No whispers, no tension, and no intrusive thoughts or commands. Her mind simply… was.

Aeillure went limp, sprawled on her back as the winds continued to howl above her in Icecrown’s miserable skies, and she took a moment to realise she was looking up at the Banshee Queen from the vantage of her lap.

Sylvanas lifted her hand away from Aeillure, a hard, scrutinizing look on her face. Deadly shadows danced on her fingertips, ready to end what remained of Aeillure’s life if she proved to be a threat.

There was only one think she could think to say.

“My life for the Banshee Queen.”

 

* * *

 

 

A helmet was needed for a time, but rumours spread like oil on water, too fast to catch and easy to slip through the fingers. Nonetheless, Aeillure walked among the Forsaken as one of them, another soul freed from the Lich King’s insidious grasp, fuelled by rage and the injustice and indignity. Or, so she was meant to be.

The memories, the fullness of them, were slow to return. For some they never did, and she couldn’t rightly decide if she wanted them to. Why remember the past when it may as well be someone else’s existence? It was what she thought at first, but the more she listened to other Forsaken the more it became clear that, for some, those memories were vital to their sense of self.

Identity was a strange thing to tackle alone, so she focused on the tasks Sylvanas gave her. She wasn’t wasted, the Dark Lady saw to that. Sylvanas knew all too well what Aeillure was capable of thanks to their numerous tussles and Aeillure took great pride and satisfaction in carrying out her orders. It was freeing to unravel the machinations of her creator, to watch the subtle shifts in the Scourge as their master shifted attention. Now, as they closed in, his minions were certainly feeling the pressure, and Aeillure had no intention of disappoint her new Queen.

Perhaps charging into the depths of the Icecrown Citadel would be the end of her, perhaps not, but she knew two things for certain.

If she died, she was at peace with it. There was precious little to linger on for her, only Sylvanas and the faded, fractal memories she inspired.

But if she _didn’t_ die, the very thought sparked excitement in her. That alone was enough to push her further and this time she did not allow it to make her reckless.


	2. To Be Forsaken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter covers 'Classic' region events from the Cataclysm Era.

Not all of her memories came back, but by the time she arrived in Lordaeron she had enough of them to form a new foundation. She wore the colours of the Forsaken well and proudly, privately revelling in the sense of purpose. She quickly acquainted herself with her new surroundings, committing the layout of the Undercity to memory before exploring Tirisfal, Silverpine and the Plaguelands as well. When she knew her way around the local territories, she was called to Sylvanas's side and given an important task.

“We will instruct a new breed of rangers here and teach them to wield fear and beasts against our enemies as you do."

Aeillure took to the task with great enthusiasm, measuring the prospective students as they came. Her days as a Farstrider made a potent mix with her existence in the Scourge and coupled with Sylvanas's considerable skill and knowledge, the new rangers were deadly and terrifying. Each of them she marked with the beast-binding glyphs printed across her own body, and each of them completed their training by sacrificing an animal companion they worked alongside from the start and binding it's spirit to them. Some went on to share their training with others, but she retained the secrets of the glyphs and how exactly they worked. To share such things freely would invite vulnerability and exploitation.

Darkhounds became a fascination of hers over time. Some forsaken kept them as pets and guard dogs, feeling a kinship with their dark origins and ferocious nature, it made them fitting companions. When she held her first pup, Aeillure couldn't help but fall in love with the little monster and for the first time since she came to be, she appreciated a living thing for more than just its capacity to fuel her.

The first pup imprinted hard and grew quickly, and she named him Varghest, soon followed by a small pack of the beasts who followed her throughout the gloomy reaches of Tirisfal and Silverpine. When she didn't have them at her side they remained in Brill, watching the town during its reconstruction and amusing off-duty Deathguards when they threw scraps.

The period of relative quiet came to an end in fire, the world itself quaking under the fury of the great black Aspect of the Earth, Neltharion--Deathwing.

 

* * *

 

 "A contingent of them will be deployed to the hills directly east. We need to keep that road open for movement into Hillsbrad."

Aeillure nodded shortly, eyeing the maps spread out over the war table. There were markers everywhere denoting troop movements, tactics, the kind of information that would be pure gold were a Gilnean agent able to pierce to the very heart of the Undercity undetected. She almost smiled at the thought. It would be an amusing sight.

"His orders are a double edged sword but not for him, he is the one wielding it," she mused, drawing Sylvanas's full attention. The Banshee Queen regarded her coolly, a light sneer forming on her lips. She straightened, looking at the maps between them again. "There is no room to deny him at this time." Her voice was hard, tightly controlled despite the frustration simmering just below the surface. "We fight at his command, or the Forsaken are crushed beneath the wheels of his war machine."

Such blunt admission was not lost on Aeillure and she simply nodded again. "Prime naval territory if we win, and no more treacherous undead if we lose." She smiled thinly at that.

When several seconds of silence passed between them, Aeillure looked at Sylvanas. She was staring at the maps with intent to split the table beneath them.

Aeillure spoke softly, "Captain?"

Sylvanas blinked, brought back to the present from whatever faraway space her mind was occupying. She stepped away from the tablet, adjusting her gloves. "The Forsaken have fought too long and too hard for their place in this world. They will not be denied it." She looked at Aeillure, her gaze of fire and steel. "I will meet you in Silverpine. Our people will  _not_ lose this war."

 

* * *

 

She delighted in turning the tides throughout Silverpine, seeing the Worgen as little more than rogue experiments of Arugal. There were a number of mishaps to be sure, but she swiftly corrected them, bringing their forces together under the Dark Lady’s banner into a single column of death that raged against the Greymane wall and beyond. Gilneas itself was troublesome territory, and she wondered what exactly it would take to break the mongrels within. Nonetheless, she took to each mission Sylvanas set out for her with single-minded pleasure and diligence.

It was only when her Queen sent her into Pyrewood with the three Gilneans that suspicion and dread begin to worm at her thoughts. They were meant to _retrieve_ survivors, Forsaken troopers who managed to get away with their lives but were trapped by 7th Legion killers who stalked the town.

“Are… are they gone?” A male asked, sporting fresh wounds, his tabard soaked in red. A hard won-fight for survival. He rose to his feet among the rubble, relief crossing his face.

The rifle cracked off over her shoulder and his face exploded, bone and brain matter plastering the blackened beam behind him. 

Aeillure spun, snarling, hissing, baring her many teeth at Godfrey and his smoking gun. He wore nothing deeper than cold, detached malice as if he didn’t even see her.

“He fell in battle,” he said flatly. “Bow your heads.”

Walden and Ashbury did not bow their heads. They stared at her, waiting for a reaction,  an excuse to kill her as well if she moved on Godfrey. She could attack them here and now, draw the attention of 7th Legion in the area and get them all killed, herself included. She didn’t like her chances in such close quarters, unprepared. There wouldn’t be enough time to call out her beasts before Godfrey levelled his gun.

She wondered briefly if Sylvanas would spare a val’kyr for her and dismissed the thought just as quickly. The Dark Lady had too great a need of them to waste on a soldier.

Aeillure bit back her rage for the moment and bowed her head, just enough for Godfrey to notice, but not so low she couldn’t watch him.

“Let’s keep looking,” she hissed.

Godfrey reloaded his gun with a click. “As you wish.”

 

* * *

 

The elation of dominance over another cracked Aeillure’s face with a toothy grin, relishing the sight of Crowley fleeing with her daughter and the enraged defeat on Ivar’s lupine features. They would all flee before her queen, sooner or later.

Sylvanas began to speak and Aeillure turned, looking up at the Dark Lady.

The rifle cracked again. Her brow burst open, her body jolted forward, the glow of her eyes went out like blown candles, and Aeillure _screeched_. She lunged to catch her Queen before the body could hit the ground, fallen from the saddle. Cromush was yelling, so were the rangers, and the Val’kyr and those _accursed_ Gilneans.

Sylvanas was heavy and limp, what remained of her face expressionless, just empty meat and bones held together by nothing.

Godfrey’s voice cut through her stupor.

“Now join your mistress in death!”

Aeillure surged towards him, every thought consumed by wrath. She ripped and tore at him with a ferocity not even the Lich King had brought out of her. Her beasts emerged with every blow, their ghostly forms savaging the Gilnean traitors in turns, breaking through their magic, their defences. At some point  Godfrey shot her, opening a hole in her belly, but she was too angry to notice it and raked her claws across his face.

“Fall back, brothers! To Shadowfang!”

Aeillure tried to stop them, diving at Godfrey’s form, but the magic took him and his allies before she could land another blow. She scrambled to her feet in the cold mud, eyes flitting across the churched earth of the battlefield between them and the rest of Silverpine. Briefly, she fixed on Shadowfang Keep and its severe silhouette. The rage abated.

She spun and shoved Cromush out of the way, not on purpose but because she refused to let him occupy her space. She crouched over Sylvanas again, dread coiling up her throat and squeezing hard when she gazed upon the Queen’s face again.

“Fix her…” Cromush breathed, looking up at the Val’kyr. He bellowed, “fix her!”

Aeillure looked up at them too, plaintive, pleading--she wasn’t sure what she was feeling other than cold emptiness. There was no anchor, no fixed point. She lived for the Banshee Queen, this wasn’t supposed to happen, and she could feel herself slipping towards something unbound and witless.

With sobering resignation the Val’kyr gave themselves over, channelling their essence into Sylvanas and fading one after the other. The gunshot closed, her body jolted and twitched, and when she finally blinked her eyes blazed once again.

Aeillure froze, meeting Sylvanas’s stare for five long seconds. “My Queen?”

Sylvanas slowly blinked and looked at her surroundings before sitting up with a soft grunt. Aeillure clenched her teeth at the hole in the back of the Dark Lady’s hood. The rage returned like spilt fuel in a wildfire. “They fled to Shadowfang Keep,” she snarled.

“Kill them,” Sylvanas looked over her shoulder at Aeillure, eyes narrowed, her voice hard and venomous. “Leave them nowhere to run.”

 

* * *

 

Shadowfang was a stage whereupon Aeillure played a beast most terrible, pursuing the three Gilneans and offering no quarter, no moment to speak. She lunged from the shadows, drenched in the ichor of their foul minions, her beasts howling all throughout the keep for what remained of their miserable lives.

They _dared..._

She should have killed them in Pyrewood, her own life be damned. If the Val’kyr weren’t there her Queen would be gone, her purpose gone, and the Forsaken lost under Garrosh’s boot. She should have risked it.

The War Room was empty, so she passed through it and onto her Queen’s private chambers with only a passing glance at the pair of Dark Rangers guarding it. The room was smaller than one might expect, furnished with a cool distaste for needless flair.

Sylvanas was at her desk, touching her brow where the bullet ripped through. Her hood was down, as were her ears, slanted in displeasure. Aeillure’s fell back with instinctive concern, which gave her momentary pause in itself, before she shook her head and stepped towards Sylvanas.

“Their heads, my Queen,” she murmured, holding up her spear. From it’s tip hung the severed heads of Ashbury, Walden, and Godfrey.

“I trust you made them suffer,” said Sylvanas, her voice low and quiet. She was caught up in her thoughts again, but this time Aeillure did not try to pull her away from it and instead kept her voice at the same level. “Greatly.”

“Good.”

“Is there anything else I might do for you, my lady?”

Silence. Sylvanas was staring at nothing. Aeillure waited, watching her, until she lowered her hand. “The Val’kyr are our future, Aeillure. They have returned me to this world twice now.”

Aeillure perked her ears. “Twice?”

Another pause.

Sylvanas turned her head, looking at Aeillure with an intensity that may have cowed another being, but Aeillure met it with equal interest. A mirthless smile turned Sylvanas’s lips. “No one else will hear of this.”

She bowed her head immediately. “It will not leave this room.”

Sylvanas nodded. “Then I will tell you how I first bonded with the Val’kyr…”

 

* * *

 

Personally, Aeillure had nothing against the Argent Crusade, but being around them always made her tense. It wasn’t all _that_ long ago that they were sworn enemies and she remembered too well the sting of their precious Light. So too, did the revitalised areas of the Eastern Plaguelands give her discomfort. It wasn’t the wildlife or the lush greenery clawing back its place in the scarred land, it was what it represented in the long term.

The living.

‘Beware the living,’ was a popular phrase amongst the Forsaken and for good reason, for the logical result of a flourishing plaguelands was a flourishing _Lordaeron_. Something the Alliance would attempt to assert ownership of and already were.

More than once Aeillure listened over campfires and sizzling roaches to the bitter resentment of former Lordaeronian citizens. How cruel it was for them to die and try to make a home of their ruined land where they were born, raised and made a life in, only for the lucky bastards who got away to come back, looking to kill them. So many of the Forsaken were people of Lordaeron. It was their home. They weren’t about to let the Alliance take it from them when the Alliance didn’t want them to begin with. If the Alliance had _wanted_ Lordaeron to fly their banners again, they should have welcomed the Forsaken back when given the chance. But they didn’t, and the Horde _did_ , so they found themselves fighting over Andorhal when who it belonged to was obvious to Aeillure.

She had no familiarity with the city but she learned quickly, skulking through the battlefield ruins at night, scoping out dangerous ground and opportunities to exploit. It was going well.

It would have gone better if not for their General.

_“You are not to speak of word of this to anyone.”_

She sneered then, but the fight against Darkmaster Gandling left her too drained to strike at Koltira. Now they were almost overrun by farmers with only the barest of training and equipment. _Farmers. Winning._ Against the might of the Forsaken. Aeillure tore the throats of more than one of the damnable humans for good measure, bellowing at his fellows while his blood dripped from her maw and stained her tabard. It was enough to break ranks, what little semblance of them there was.

She used their fear to push her forward, spurred on by the wingbeats of a val’kyr at her back and the cries to Forsaken soldiers. They crashed against the Alliance line and Aeillure slipped behind, firing into the backs of the living and breaking them. The Forsaken forces swept through and the Alliance crumbled, turning tail and abandoning their claim on the city. A victory for certain, one many Forsaken cheered over at the sight of fleeing Alliance.

She was not sated.

Aeillure prowled back to the rebuilt section of the city and slipped beneath the Greathall to find Sylvanas was still there. The shadows wrapped around her like wings and she crossed her arms, brow arching critically.

“Thassarian?” Her voice was hard with anger.

“Gone,” Aeillure growled, slanting her ears back. “His _pet_ was slain, but he appears to have fled with the rest of the Alliance forces.”

“And Koltira?”

“Sweeping the city for any Alliance that remain.”

Sylvanas gave her a scrutinizing look. “What would you do with him?”

The question was delivered like the whip of a kitchen knife being sharpened, quick and cutting, expectant. Perhaps it was a test, and one Aeillure had no intention of failing. “My rage says ‘eat him,’ but he is still useful to us. Press too hard and he _will_ turn against you, turn _others_ against you as a tyrant to be felled. Shame and humiliation are powerful tools, strip him of his rank. He threatened our people’s future here by believing he could trust the Alliance and is unfit to lead. Station him somewhere else until he learns this. He is of little use in my belly or on a torture rack.”

“We will see.”

“What is your intent, my lady?”

“Retrieve him.”

She nodded and left in search of the death knight, wondering if her words had mattered. Either way, Koltira was going to pay for his foolishness. Too many Forsaken died today when they didn’t need to.

Thankfully, Koltira wasn’t difficult to find and bring back. She stalked ahead of him and stood by the stairway, watching him kneel before her Queen. The air was heavy around them and the shadows grew thicker, casting Koltira in sharp contrast as the light filtering down from above fell over him like some mockery of a halo.

“Your highness, I deliver to you...Andorhal.”

Sylvanas did not respond at first, leaving him to kneel in a silence dense enough to choke the living, until he dared to raise his head in question. “Do you realise how many Forsaken died today because of your Alliance _brother?_ ” The ice in her voice did not escape him and Aeillure could not even muster the malice to grin at his obvious unease.

Koltira remained on his knee, trying to formulate an acceptable answer. “Your majesty, this is war, our soldiers bought this city with their lives, they--”

The shadows snapped out, wrapping around his throat at Sylvanas’s command. He was hoisted off his feet, kicking, struggling to pull away limbs of solid darkness. He reminded Aeillure of a worm, freshly hooked.

Sylvanas’s eyes burned in the darkness. “Do not presume to tell _me_ the cost of war, Death Knight!” she spat. “You allowed sentiment to cloud your judgement, to fool you into believing Thassarian’s word when you know full well he has thrown his lot behind the _living_ , behind the _Alliance_ who seek to destroy us!”

She dropped him on the floor, glowering down her nose while he struggled to stand, pawing at his damaged neck. “Loyal soldiers died today because of your so-called brother, because you gave him and his Alliance the opening to strike at us. Do you have any idea in that fool mind of yours what the Alliance would do next had they claimed this city?”

Koltira’s voice was a hard mutter. “They would feel emboldened.”

“And they would grow in confidence until they moved on the Bulwark, and onwards to the rest of Tirisfal.”

“I did not mean for this to happen.”

Sylvanas scowled and knelt over him. “Intent is worthless,” she said, wrenching away the Forsaken insignia that marked him as a General. “Whatever you _meant_ to happen here does not matter. You are not fit to lead my soldiers, they deserve better. You will report back to the Undercity and remain there until I decide where to put you. I suggest you spend that time thinking of this moment, and what you could have done to avoid the deaths your sentiment caused here today.”

 

* * *

 

"The Eastern Plaguelands have been secured for the moment. The strike team sent into Stratholme successfully cleared out the worst of the Scourge and the  _friendly_ Crusade are mopping up the rest as we speak."

Aeillure finished marking the area on the war table. Many areas of the Eastern Plaguelands were still in need of dire attention, but the Scourge holdouts were undeniably dwindling. Securing Stratholme was a decisive blow, breaking the back of their presence in the region as a whole. All in all, it was a productive adventure from start to finish. She could have done without the talkative caravan rides, but she left such trivialities out of her report.

"We will need to keep an eye on the Crusade. They may count people of the Horde amongst them, but we cannot assume that renders them harmless. They are convenient, for now."

Aeillure nodded, pondering the notes in her satchel, and folded her ears back at the thought of them. They were important but not immediately relevant, perhaps. She wasn't entirely sure. Sylvanas took notice of her discontent. "Is there something else?"

She frowned deeply, ready to dismiss it and yet it clung to her thoughts. "Not... actually, yes. Something to consider at the very least." She dug the notes out of her satchel, a copy she'd made while conversing with a former Apothecary deep within the thick-aired confines of the Plaguewoods. She passed them to Sylvanas. "One of ours is working on an agent to neutralise the Scourge plague, but I believe they mean to develop it to neutralise the blight as well. They seemed... discontent."

Sylvanas did not look up from the papers, her brow furrowing. "Continue."

Aeillure straightened, finding the words came easier now that they were actually talking about it. "While they pose no harm alone, I have heard the occasional murmur that our methods are too extreme, and align with the Scourge." She paused briefly before she continued with a neutral tone, "and the Lich King."

The torchlight of the war room warped for a second, a fluctation where light become an inarguable impossibility for a fraction of time. Aeillure did not flinch. "We risk a great many things, my lady."

Sylvanas lifted a hand to her brow, fingertips lingering on the spot where Godfrey's bullet emerged. "If I restrict the val'kyr, we cannot replenish ourselves at the rate we are being lost. This war has expanded beyond our borders and Gilneas continues to drain us. We did not win, but neither have we lost, yet." She gestured to the marker denoting Deathwing's last known location. "And then there is  _this._ " She peered at Aeillure from beneath deeply furrowed brows, her eyes betraying deep-seated frustration and--helplessness was too strong a word. But her Queen  _despised_ this position, of that Aeillure was certain. 

She leaned on the war table, peering at Deathwing's marker. "It may be worth rethinking the Blight, my lady, if for no other reason than it's use tarnishes what little trust our living allies may have in us. We need not give them more ammunition."

The Dark Lady returned her attention to the maps. "Perhaps, when our people do not dangle by a thread. Until then."

Dismissed, Aeillure bowed and left Sylvanas to her thoughts, the future of the Forsaken hanging over her like an axe.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The desperation to not die out and be exterminated feels like it should have been played up a lot more to really emphasise the point. Also comparing Sylvanas to the Lich King should have been a moment of Actual Seriousness and not something she just brushed off with a sarcastic salute and Garrosh calling her a bitch for Edgy Storytelling.


	3. Through All Hatred Undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This covers the absolute clusterfuck surrounding the Mists of Pandaria era.

Observation was a crucial part of her skillset. It formed the backbone of everything else, to the planning and execution, to the way she moved and struck and spoke, all for the end goal of provoking a particular response. In most cases, the Lich King had demanded terror and despair. But he wasn’t who she listened to anymore. She served the Dark Lady, the Forsaken, and for them she spent much of her time observing.

Their survival pushed her to suggest a new approach to the Blight, it was why she kept her ears open to any alternative to their current method of repopulation, and it was why the bombing of Theramore made her very, very worried.

Her Queen shared that worry, anticipating Alliance anger turning on Lordaeron, but Sylvanas was given no support by Lor’themar. Ostensibly, their closest ally, due to suffer all the same if the Alliance saw fit to retaliate.

That burned in Aeillure’s gut, wondering the whys like an ant circling her finger, over and over again. Perhaps he was too afraid to speak in front of Garrosh, but he made no move to speak to her Queen after the fact. Instead, he may well feel as the rest of the living so often did. If the Alliance struck the Forsaken first, it was no serious loss and would give the Sin’dorei time to reinforce their holdings. After all, many of the Forsaken were former high elves, as much a bad memory for them as the humans of the Alliance.

How ironic it was that the Sin’dorei carried remembrance for the fallen in their name but shuddered at the idea of reaching out to those amongst the Forsaken.

The dust of Durotar followed her south, carrying new orders for Captain Farley now that the operation in Theramore was over and the celebrations were under way. Aeillure curled her lip and sneered the word ‘celebration’ to herself, folding her ears in displeasure.

This Warchief had just hurtled them over a line that could not be erased.

The walls of Razor Hill loomed into focus, braziers burning against the night sky and tired soldiers drinking their battles away. Aeillure passed the northern threshold into town, looked around for a moment, and the inn exploded. It belched fire and deep, black smoke into the middle of town, startling soldiers and guards alike. Her eyes flicked across the crowds, narrowing in her race to find anyone acting inappropriately. She hissed in frustration, there were too many bodies and the smoke was fast obscuring whoever may have done it.

She slipped through the crowd and into the building, leaving others to fetch water for the fire. There wasn’t enough to deter her. She had someone to find.

There were fewer bodies than she’d have liked. It meant less chance of survivors, not enough meat to stifle the blast, and as she rifled through smouldering debris she found what she was looking for.

Captain Frandis Farley’s body, dressed in the typical dark grey armour and deep purple of a Forsaken soldier, was charred and broken, half covered by the shattered remains of the table and bench he must have been using.

The rich copper of blood caught her attention and Aeillure peered at the other side of the debris pile where a sin’dorei woman, a Blood Knight if her tabard was anything to go by, lay dead in a halo of her own blood. One of the explosions must have gone off extremely close to them. Her entire left side was ravaged by fire, shrapnel and sheer force.

For a brief moment, Aeillure wished she at least knew the woman’s name so she could report it.

Dismissing it, Aeillure gathered Captain Farley’s broken corpse in her arms and carried it out of the fire. Orders flew over her head to rescue survivors and keep the water line moving, but there was no use for it. No one had survived whatever happened here, and Aeillure knew that was entirely the point.

 

* * *

 

“Are you certain this is where I’ll be most useful to you, my lady?”

The question hung in the air and Aeillure resisted the urge to look around in search of prying eyes. She was perched on a barren little ledge outside Orgrimmar, staring out over the Bladefist Bay and all the feverish activity below. The war machine was winding up quickly.

Any orc looking to listen in on the conversation would need to be unspeakably nimble.

“I need as many trusted eyes and ears as I can spare for this _endeavour_ of his. Any forewarning you and Kiryn are able to convey will be invaluable.”

Aeillure tilted her head to peer at the airship looming over the bay, running down a mental list of names and faces she would need to watch and mark off as the mission progressed. Whatever happened once they got underway, she had little doubt of the mess that would follow if Theramore was any indication of things to come.

She frowned and looked down at the communication crystal in her palm. It would be her only link to home, to her Queen, once they were off.

She swallowed her unease and responded with low, firm voice. “As you wish.”

 

* * *

 

Marahdo was a mellow, reasonable sort, as one might expect from tauren, and a shaman at that,  and Aeillure knew his name for his service during the War Against Deathwing. It made letting him take command of the situation in Honeydew Village easy, and certainly made things easier for _her_ as she observed the catastrophic aftermath of their equally catastrophic arrival in Pandaria.

Something about the land made her uneasy, plucking at some imperceptible sense buried _deep_ and she didn’t care for the needling. She dismissed it and kept watch, taking mental notes of the strange shadowy creatures that sprang up in the aftermath. The way Captain Doren’s body transformed in response played in her mind over and over again. His body had warped like some macabre pearlescent taffy, bleeding a strange black fluid through his skin that stained the ground like ink. It smelled of wet ashes, musty, old, and dragged from somewhere deep beneath the ground. The same thing almost happened to Nazgrim, though he was saved from Doren’s grisly fate.

The Pandaren were an interesting people, curious but understandably wary given the circumstances, more so if those _things_ really were birthed from negative passions.

Being a compassionate soul, Marahdo did his best to smooth things over, helping the locals recover supplies and repair damage to the area. She helped by putting down the wildlife twisted by their arrival. They had different methods even if their goals were nominally the same, but neither of them could really change the situation. Ultimately, _Nazgrim_ was in charge, the other two orcs followed his example. If push came to shove the goblin would likely throw his lot in with them. That left her, the Shademaster, and Marahdo to cauterise the wounds their presence caused here. But they couldn’t prevent it altogether without potentially killing their only allies on the continent, and to put it delicately, they would be fucked at that point.

The Horde and Alliance armies were already in motion. They _would_ arrive eventually, and when they did…

She conferred with Shademaster Kiryn at night, picking over the monkey-man infested remains of Hellscream’s Fist. Between clearing bodies and recovering supply crates they muttered observations and suppositions, a debate of concerns and consequences. They quickly agreed on at least one thing. This had the makings of another Gilneas, a slog of a war whose only real purpose seemed to churn bodies, and they had barely begun churning here.

“You know, we received an extra contingent of Kor’kron just before we left,” Kiryn muttered, pulling her dagger from one of the ‘hozen’ as the locals called them.

“I do,” Aeillure growled, glancing out a tear in the airship’s great hull. The night was still young and deceptively calm. “To reinforce it against Alliance opportunists, obviously.”

She could hear the cool, grim smile in Kiryn’s voice. “How _generous_ of the Warchief to look out for our interests.”

 

* * *

 

For a brief window of time, Aeillure almost thought things might stay sluggish and irritating, but mundane. Mundane was preferable for this situation and for weeks she had nothing of real substance to report to her Dark Lady. Yet.

She didn’t join Marahdo and the questionably-blind kaldorei woman he’d befriended in Dawn’s Blossom—Keleria she believed the name was—on their little flight with the great green serpent, Yu’lon. She did, however, fully understand how important the serpent and the statue were. A lot of time, resources and effort had been sunk into it, and it was truly a beautiful thing to behold.

But all the mutterings of evil energies and negative emotions scratched at the back of her thoughts. As did the ever persistent sense of calm and reason the locals appeared to hold to like it was a religion unto itself. Nothing ever seemed to boil over for them.

And now she knew why.

Something sour coiled inside her seeing the jade serpent topple amidst the explosion of sha energies.

“What would you liken these creatures to?”

The question caught her off-guard, unsure what to really compare the Sha to for a long moment. She quickly boiled them down to their simplest traits. They affected the mind and warped the bodies of those they overwhelmed.

“Old Gods,” she answered quietly. Thunder rumbled overhead and she glanced out at the rain lashing the plains. They stretched out into a fertile valley known for its bountiful farms, hearty cuisine and the largest brewery on the continent. She was on the edge of this territory, perched in a rocky alcove and holding the communication crystal against her chest.

Sylvanas didn’t speak for another long moment, no doubt contemplating the implications of her answer.

Her thoughts flitted back to the Undercity, to the Kor’kron and Garrosh. There would never be enough time, he and the rest of the Horde forces would arrive in a matter of weeks, bringing all their passions with them. So too would the Alliance land in force.

Aeillure scowled. “This will get worse.”

“I have no doubt. What of your companions?”

“They are being tended to elsewhere. The shaman has set off into the valley. What would you have me do?”

“Your orders have not changed. Make contact when the Warchief arrives and do as you are asked. Keep me informed of anything of significance.”

“As you wish.”

 

* * *

 

The sha’s death wail shot through her mind like a white hot lance. It struck something deeply buried and visceral, knocking her down into the rain soaked mud. She should’ve seen the sky but instead she saw flashes of home, of the Undercity in flames, a great Sin’dorei gate cutting off an Alliance army at the Ghostlands pass, Forsaken hunted like vermin, and her Queen…

Aeillure strangled the wail in her throat. She thrashed in the mud, desperate to reconnect with her body, with something solid and real, desperate to _get away_ from that terrible, terrible image. The image of her Queen hanging like a slain animal, Alliance banners fluttering over the keep, and Garrosh’s sneering laughter echoing through her ears.

Bear-like hands hauled her upright and she instinctively squirmed free of Yi-Mo’s grip, finding her feet. Her vision cleared in an instant and she took in the pandaren’s exhausted features, warmed by gratitude. She looked around at Zhu’s Watch, its defenders revitalised, relinquished from the ugly pallor of sha influence. She took all of it in, and swallowed it.

“What a bother,” she sighed, nonchalantly flicking her bony tail and folding her ears in feigned distaste. “If that’s all you need, I believe I’m done here.”

“Hah! No trouble for the likes of you, hm? Well, you are more than welcome to rest here if you wish, we are in your debt.”

Aeillure waved him away. “Don’t you have duties to attend to?”

Yi-Mo gave her a dry look. “Indeed. Be careful out there.” He passed her by with a pat on the shoulder, a gesture she could have done without. She stared ahead, focusing on nothing in particular, and the rain continued to catch on her ears.

Curling her lips in a sneer, she narrowed her eyes and made for the greater Krasarang Wilds. She would not be deterred by little more than bad dreams. She was above such childish manipulation.

 

* * *

 

She was not above such manipulations.

At the Temple of the Red Crane, in front of the spirit himself and the princeling she humoured, she held it in, browbeating herself into outward neutrality and reticence. She left the boy to his questions, the monks to their temple, and skulked off into the marshy Krasarang wilderness, coming apart at the seams with each step further into solitude.

She’d seen it again. Those horrible visions of a future she couldn’t bear thinking about. The Sha of Despair dragged them into sickening focus, forcing her to _think_ of the Forsaken hunted down like rats huddling in desperate terror, cleansed from the land and living memory through fire, Light and blade. It forced her to think of her Queen, beaten, executed, a thorn removed from Garrosh’s heel, his laughter ever-present, domineering, mocking.

It hurt.

Aeillure pawed at her chest where a tangle of abject sorrow weighed heavy in the cradle of her ribs. Overcome, she dug the communication crystal from its pocket and activated it with a spark of magic.

She crouched at the edge of a stream, hanging her head to stare at the boundary where mud became water.

“You have something to report?”

Sylvanas’s voice was no different than usual, low and firm, bordering on a growl when her patience was tested, but it was real. It was a reminder of what had come to pass and what _hadn’t_ , and for that it was the sweetest sound Aeillure had heard in a very long time.

Sylvanas spoke again as the seconds dragged on. “Aeillure?”

“I didn’t have the words for it when it happened,” she started, holding the crystal close when she could only manage a strained mutter. “My mind went blank, I panicked, and for the moments you were gone I felt no better than an animal. There was no purpose, no direction. I’d barely put myself back together, how was I to fathom existence without you?”

It took a few seconds, but when Sylvanas responded she sounded almost cautious. “Have you encountered more Sha?” she asked slowly.

Aeillure grimaced, closing her eyes. “The Sha of Despair. I killed it, I’m not under its influence right now, but it opened wounds I cannot ignore.”

“Whatever you are feeling right now is a product of that creature.”

“No. You freed me. You returned my name to me. You gave me purpose, a cause to believe in and fight for, to press on despite this curse of ours. The thought of it failing, of our people being wiped out, of losing you—it cuts me in ways I cannot bind. All that I am is for you, my lady, whatever it is you see fit to do with that.”

Another pause, the silence filled by the burble of the stream and distant waves lapping at the shore. She didn’t regret the words and that softened the pain in her chest, as if a weight were lifted.

This time, when Sylvanas spoke her voice was distant but softer. “When did you last eat?”

“Days.”

“Go and find something. You will feel better.”

The ache lessened again and Aeillure opened her eyes with the slightest of smiles. “As you wish,” she murmured.

 

* * *

 

The weeks passed by quicker than expected. Time flew when you kept busy and Aeillure had been _very_ busy, from the Wastes beyond the Serpent Spine Wall, to the Steppes and reconvening with her allies in Kun-lai, everything became a veritable blur of activity.

Moments of peace were few and far between, but most of them were held in Halfhill with Marahdo and his kaldorei friends. Keleria she met earlier, but Taellen was an unfamiliar fac, a monk trained by a wandering pandaren years ago. She had an acerbic, grumbling nature that Aeillure attributed half to her frequent drinking and half to some undefined trauma she had no interest in digging up.

She admitted to herself and eventually to Marahdo that it was nice to converse with the ‘other side’ rather than fighting. They could almost forget the war had yet to come.

The problem was, the quicker time passed the quicker it ran out.

The King and the Warchief arrived and brought their fleets with them. It was Marahdo’s turn to let Aeillure take the lead, trusting her judgement when they presented themselves to Garrosh and aided in the construction of ‘Domination Point.’ As subtle as a brick to the face, much like the man who named it.

She knew it from the tension in the air and the way Garrosh bristled and twitched, puffing out his barrel of a chest at Vol’jin’s sheer _nerve_ that he was painting a target on the troll. One that may have hit its mark were Marahdo not so  competent a healer.

Aeillure played the moment in her head over and over before she called Sylvanas, huddled in the highest reaches of the Krasarang canopy in the dead of night.

“Yes?”

“Vol’jin will be disappearing for a while. Garrosh tried to have him assassinated, and believes him dead for the moment.”

There was silence for a brief moment, then a cold scoff. “Of course he did. What else?”

Aeillure frowned deeply, flicking over the knowledge they uncovered regarding the Mogu and their slave-species. “I believe his interest in malignant arcana is the most pressing concern. The saurok aren’t a natural species, they were ‘built’ by the mogu and their flesh-shaping magic. As far as I understand it, they ripped animals apart with the magic, ‘uplifted’ them just enough to serve as shock troops, and suffered when their slaves rebelled.”

Intrigue and disdain mixed heavily in Sylvanas’s voice. “I can see why he would be interested in such a power,” she said coldly.  “If there is nothing else, continue your observation, and stay aware of your surroundings.”

Aeillure nodded to herself. “I will, my lady.”

 

* * *

 

“I suspect the Regent Lord was afraid at the time, unwilling to the risk when we didn’t know how far this would go.”

“And look where we are now,” Sylvanas sneered, frustration thick in her tone. Aeillure didn’t blame her for it, while the rest of the Horde leaders were still free to move and act, she was confined to the Undercity under the watchful eyes of the Kor’kron. Not physically of course, but they were an unspoken threat to the Forsaken people, an executioner’s axe waiting to drop if Sylvanas acted out.

Aeillure frowned, staring up at the night sky over the Vale. “The mogu we captured still refuses to speak. I suspect our ever-patient Warchief will kill him before the week is out.”

“Whatever knowledge that creature possesses should die with it.”

“Would you have me handle the matter?”

“No. He is under too close a guard and we cannot guarantee the matter _will_ die with him. Continue as you are.”

 

* * *

 

Ordinarily, the smell of blood and screams of terror would thrill her sense of the hunt, the innate drive to kill and consume the San’layn infused her with when they dragged her back into existence. It still did, but seeing Dalaran’s streets awash with blood and magic, knowing those screams belonged to the sin’dorei, it pressed the thrill into something sour and sharp.

Perhaps she wasn’t quite the monster they intended her to be.

Nonetheless, it was Marahdo who handled hurrying civilians and wounded to safety. She kept watch, firing at Alliance and Silver Covenant alike when they tried to intervene. There was a crackle in the air, the raw energy of someone powerful and angry beyond measure. They’d done their best to avoid the source of it. Proudmoore may have been known for her peaceful outlook once but those inclinations may as well have been ancient history now.

The pain of betrayal was especially pointed.

She left Marahdo to gather the last of the injured and split off to accompany Rommath. Truth be told, she almost expected to find Aethas strung up by his own bowels but she put it down to her time around the Warchief. The Alliance would have just cut him down where he stood if they felt so inclined. But no, the Archmage was alive, if battered and shaken.

They made their escape quickly and as Dalaran shrank into the distance from the backs of their dragonhawks, Aeillure found herself dwelling in the implications of this moment. The fallout would be felt for a long while yet, of that she was certain, and she quietly hoped it would not empower Garrosh, but weaken him.

 

* * *

 

Aeillure was no stranger to rage, and since Garrosh’s little demonstration with that accursed bell she was harbouring an ever increasing amount of it. The Horde was buckling under the strain of his ambition, and all he saw was weakness. Unworthy races to be cast aside or crushed under heel.

So it was with great pleasure that she took to helping the Darkspear with their rebellious intentions. Supplies were easy to steal under the cover of darkness and her ghostly beasts made for perfect distractions, sowing unease and superstition throughout the orcish ranks.

The attack on Sen’jin came as a refreshing outlet and she slaked her fury on Kor’kron blood, staining the sands of Durotar all the way from the village to Razor Hill.

It didn’t surprise her how quickly activity picked up in the area after that. Alliance were moving between the cracks in Kor’kron patrols, supplies were siphoned left and right, and she was frightening the spirits out of every common grunt she came across on her nightly hunts.

Things were going well.

They _were_ going well.

She relayed their progress to Sylvanas from the Shrine of the Two Moons, delivering messages for aid and battle plans to allies in Pandaria, only for their conversation to stall when she saw the dust of marching orcs rise in the Vale.

The screech of the sha sent her reeling from the edge of the terrace. Aeillure reflexively hissed and scrambled back like a flipped crab, communication crystal skittering across the tiles. She grabbed at it quickly and retreated further.

It was as if the sky itself rent open in an effort to escape. A rotten, musty odour thickened the air and lay heavy on her tongue, forcing a grimace on her lips. The screams continued. She folded her ears and hurried to her feet.

The once pristine pools were belching corruption into the air like a geyser, raining down across the Vale’s golden grass and elegant, blossom laden trees. They withered, bending and twisting, cracking open like fiery fissures in the earth, spewing a ghastly white vapour.

“Aeillure!”

She blinked, becoming aware of Sylvanas’s voice again. It was harder than she’d ever heard it.

“He… he’s desecrated the Vale with some artefact of the Sha, I couldn’t see it from here. But he may have killed Taran Zhu. The sha are spreading. We have run out of time to prepare. We _must_ act, now!”

“Return to the Undercity at once, I will mobilise the Dark Rangers. Any Kor’kron who do not see reason now will learn what it means to threaten a banshee Queen.”

 

* * *

 

Waiting for justice to be meted out could be a dull and arduous process. Why they didn’t just execute him and be done with it, Aeillure didn’t understand. To have some sense of moral rightness, of balance, as if anything could be weighed in Garrosh’s favour. It was a farce. But she kept those thoughts to herself, watching the trial develop with forced detachment lest she spit out something cruel and untoward.

Far more important to her was the development surrounding her Queen and the youngest sister, Vereesa. They’d begun talking, spending time together, planning something—something she was not enlightened to. It may have stung but she left the Dark Lady to her privacy. Family matters, especially when they concerned the living, were far too personal to share freely. She hoped it was positive.

She _hoped_.

Watching her Queen storm from the Undercity and out into the wilds of Tirisfal shattered any such sentiment.

Sylvanas left a trail of ruined beasts and blackened flora in her wake. Her shrieks were pained and incandescent, echoing through the forest and forcing terror upon the weak-willed. Though Aeillure managed to keep pace, listening to her Queen rage put a hard, frozen tangle in her chest, pushing her move faster and catch up instead of merely following. She wasn’t entirely sure what would do if she did, what she _could_ do to soothe whatever wound caused this. She had never seen Sylvanas like this before and part of her reeled at the display.

The wake of death stopped at an empty glade, deep in the forest. Sylvanas stood bristling with dark magic, hands clenched at her sides. The light of the moon folded around her, collapsing into itself as if it feared to touch her, and the grasses of the glade quickly wilted and withered around her boots.

Aeillure hopped down from the trees, landing with a crunch of dead grass.

“ _Leave_.”

She froze at the voice, a hard, guttural snarl that echoed with unrestrained power, warping the sound to her ears until it felt like a whip against her sense of hearing. She blinked the pain away and slowly approached Sylvanas, stopping at the edge of the unnatural darkness pervading her space.

“No.” It was a simple response and the only one she could get out before Sylvanas roared and turned on her. She barely avoided the attack and her cloak fluttered to the ground in tatters.

Sylvanas came for her again; a figure wreathed in shadow, her blazing red eyes and screeching maw the only consistent part of her. Her talons sought skin, flesh and bone to rend and pain to inflict, and Aeillure managed to avoid the worst of it. Just the glancing blows sent spider webs of sizzling agony through her, but she made no move to truly escape. That wasn’t the point.

Something had happened. Something Aeillure greatly suspected to involve Vereesa, as it was the only thing that could conceivably provoke such a blistering response. Whatever it was, Aeillure wouldn’t leave her Queen to struggle with it alone no more than a healer would leave the wounded to bleed out.

Around and around they went, pushing and pulling, dodging and weaving, each missed blow sending up  plumes of  soil or splinters, filling the glade with the  snaps and groans of falling trees.

With each moment spent on the razors edge of her Queen’s fury, Aeillure watched Sylvanas slowly return to herself. The rage drained the longer she spent exerting herself and her powers, trying to exact vengeance on a target out of reach, until the moonlight finally broke through. “Enough!”

The command brought her to a standstill and Aeillure staggered, licking glassy blood from her lips. Sylvanas stood only a few feet away, her eyes smouldering in the darkness of her hood. The anger was still there, but so was a pain so nakedly intense that it wrenched at something deep in the pit of Aeillure’s belly. She took one step forward and Sylvanas snarled a hand in her torn tabard, holding her in place.

The Dark Lady’s lip curled in a snarl. “Why?”

Aeillure cocked her head. “You needed something to focus on.”

Red eyes narrowed at her and Sylvanas hissed, “I could have killed you.”

Aeillure made no move to free herself from Sylvanas’s grasp and kept her voice low and firm. “That is a risk I am willing to take when it involves your well-being, my lady.” Aeillure placed a hand over Sylvanas’s fist and the touch made her grip loosen, a look of regret passing over her features. Sylvanas quickly masked it with a scowl. “My well-being,” she murmured coolly, “how _sweet_ of you.”

Internally bracing, Aeillure broke the question burning on her tongue. “What did Vereesa do?”

Rage flashed in Sylvanas’s eyes and she tightened her hold, fastening her other hand to the tabard and hauling Aeillure closer to her. “I don’t remember asking you to read me,” she hissed.

Aeillure folded her ears, gazing at her Queen so furious and _hurt_ by one of the living. “You didn’t. But I cannot abide watching you bleed if I can do something to staunch it.”

Sylvanas scoffed bitterly. “And what do you expect to do?”

Aeillure gently clasped her wrists. “Listen, talk, kill, whatever it is that will help you. The living can inflict deeper wounds than any, and often without care or meaning. Flesh is weak, crude matter, it can be replaced.” She moved one of her hands along Sylvanas’s arm and tapped a talon against her breastplate. “This… this intangible thing, cannot. It is ours, through pain and pleasure, no matter how badly it is twisted. It must be taken care of or we risk losing what little is left to us. _Yours_ carries the weight of a damned people, a damned existence, and all the expectations that come with that. Let me help you, captain.”

For a long moment there was nothing. Sylvanas was unreadable but her eyes remained intense. She seemed to be mulling the words over and her hands slowly loosened. She caught the hand against her chest and looked down at it, frowning deeply, eyes flicking to the torn leather of Aeillure’s armour and the slow trickle of glassy blood flowing from it.

Sylvanas flicked her ears in displeasure and looked away. “First we will get you fixed up,” she murmured. “Then… we will talk.”

Aeillure smiled, bowing her head. “As you wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reading the wowpedia page to try and make sense of wtf even happened politically and zone-wise during this era of WoW's history gave me an ulcer but like, spiritually.
> 
> I'm not joking, refreshing my memory of Garrosh's character trajectory, the way they kept hinting at Sylvanas being a problem in the making, and just in general the way she's been written for a long fucking time now gave me heartburn at 7am in the fucking morning.
> 
> P.S: Yes, Aeillure is absolutely using the Princess Bride meaning of 'As you wish.'


End file.
